


They're Just Old Light

by PippaLovesTunaBrick (SevralShips)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst and Feels, Backstory, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon Trans Character, Confessions, Flashbacks, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-explicit PIV sex, Nonbinary Juno Steel, Other, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Past Infidelity, Past Relationship(s), Tender Sex, Trans Peter Nureyev, for most of the fic they fight and then they get tender af, my galaxy brain 'Nureyev's first love was Diamond' AU, wow there is no official Diamond/Nureyev tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:48:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevralShips/pseuds/PippaLovesTunaBrick
Summary: "Who was your first love?"“Diamond.”He was so tense, wound as tight as the strings of that damn instrument he played and I didn’t want to ask it, but I had to,  “Diamond who?” He could not possibly mean…Nureyev pulled in a shallow breath, and gave me the worst answer in the galaxy, “Your Diamond, love. I—”“My Diamond?” a harsh laugh barked its way from my throat, sounding like Sarah Steel, my heart throbbing as if someone’s fist had taken the word ‘punchline’ a little too literally. On pure instinct, I had to punch back. “That’s funny, hilarious, actually, because, ya see, I don’t actually have any goddamn diamonds ever since I pawned the one she gave me."--In which I explore the conversation Juno and Nureyev would have if his first love and Juno's were one and the same.
Relationships: Diamond/Juno Steel, Diamond/Peter Nureyev, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	They're Just Old Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Samson' by Regina Spektor
> 
> I don't expect this to be canon at all, but once the idea occurred to me I felt compelled to explore the angst!
> 
> TWs:  
> -discussion of infidelity, unhealthy/toxic relationships, etc.  
> -some canon-typical self-loathing  
> -depiction of a panic attack  
> -brief mentions of violence  
> -Nureyev is trans and though I've kept the language ambiguously masculine-coded, they do have PIV sex

~Juno~

With a quiet _whoosh,_ the door to his room — _our_ room — on the _Carte Blanche_ slid shut and I found myself alone with him. After everything, the silence seemed too loud. My nerves were already in tatters after the day we’d had, and a not insignificant part of me wanted to just fall into bed and sleep. But Nureyev was hesitating at the foot of the bed — _our_ bed — as if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to get into it. I opened my mouth, his name already half-formed in my throat when his eyes met mine. There was something there in those clear, dark eyes of his, but it wasn’t until a pointed tooth gnawed at his lip that I identified what that unfamiliar look was.

Peter Nureyev was _nervous_.

I’d seen him scared before, I’d seen him stressed out, and frustrated, and even embarrassed. I’d seen him caught off guard, hell, I was proud to say that I’d even caught the quick-witted thief off guard myself on a few occasions. But nervous? The last time I’d seen nerves on Peter Nureyev, I’d been peering inside his skull at the memory of a skinny kid whose big dreams were right on the verge of shattering.

What the hell did he have to be nervous about? Sasha was dealt with for the time being, our family was out of immediate danger. Nureyev’s gaze slid away from mine to the floor. My clothes were still in a crumpled heap there, where I’d left them after target practice with Buddy. It felt like a few years ago I’d matched wits and shots with Buddy down in the storage-area-turned-shooting-range, a decade ago that I’d followed Nureyev’s chicken-scratch clues around the ship, gathering answers from each of our fellow crew members until…

_“Who was my first love?”_

Now that I’d remembered it, it was like there was a third person in the room with us. The question itself, or rather, the person in question. Nureyev’s _first love_ might as well have been sitting on the bed between us, coolly filing their nails. I automatically pictured someone like him — as if anyone else in the galaxy could compare — someone who conducted themselves with his chameleonic suavity and style. But then it occurred to me, maybe they weren’t like that at all. Maybe, well… maybe it stood to reason they might have been a little more like _me_ , the poor bastard. 

Nureyev cleared his throat and I realized that some of what had just unfolded in my head must’ve shown on my face, because a line had formed between his elegantly arched brows and he looked even more nervous than he had before. I needed to say something to calm him down. He didn’t have anything to be nervous about, after all. Sure, I didn’t exactly relish the thought of him loving someone who wasn't me, but it wasn’t like I was going to be a jealous prick about it either. We weren’t exactly teenagers, was the thing, and well, it wasn’t like he was my first love either. 

And, it dawned on me, I actually _wanted_ to know. I wanted to know all about them, in a way. They must have been pretty damn special, if they had wormed their way into the steel-trap that was Peter Nureyev’s trust. Or did they maybe not, and that distrust was what had come between them? I couldn't help but wonder, with a sympathetic pang, had they broken his heart? At least from what I'd seen (and what I'd lived through) back on Mars, first loves always left your heart black and blue. Whoever they had been, and whatever all had played out between the two of them, it was safe to assume it had had some kind of impact on this man who had become so, _so_ indescribably important to me, and I wanted to know all about it because I wanted to know _him_. All of him, as well as I could.

“Nureyev,” I said, as gently and conversationally as I could muster, “Who was your first love?”

For some reason, I’d expected the nerves on his face to just melt away at hearing that. That maybe he was nervous because he thought I wouldn’t remember to ask, or maybe that I wouldn’t want to know about it at all. But it became apparent it wasn’t that, because he did not relax. He looked away from me, out at the stars scrolling endlessly by beyond the reinforced porthole, “Juno, love…” he said, around a fake yawn, using all his acting chops to seem tired all of a sudden, but it was too little, too late, “Perhaps we’d better leave that conversation for another time, when we aren’t both so,” another yawn, trying too hard, overselling it, “So very fatigued.”

“I’m not tired.” I lied. I was dead tired, to tell you the truth, but my curiosity always had gotten the better of me when push came to shove. 

Nureyev tutted, “Dear, you must be—”

“Nureyev,” I said, a little more firmly, “You obviously think I should know, or you wouldn’t have constructed a whole merry little treasure hunt just to get me to ask,” Nureyev chewed his lip again, brows knit together and something else occurred to me. _Oops._ “Look, I’m sorry I’ve never thought to ask before. You’re just so, you know, _private_ about some things — well, _everything,_ actually — and I didn’t want to push—”

“Diamond.” Nureyev said, invoking a name I never in a million years would have expected from his mouth. The spectre on the bed suddenly didn't resemble a vague notion of someone glamourous or impulsive, but… someone very, very painfully familiar.

I shook the thought off. That couldn’t be what he meant. Probably some reference or interstellar slang I hadn’t encountered on Mars.

“Diamond.” I repeated flatly and he nodded. He was so tense, wound as tight as the strings of that damn instrument he played and I didn’t want to ask it, but I had to, “Diamond _who?_ ” He _could not_ possibly mean…

Nureyev pulled in a shallow breath, and gave me the worst answer in the galaxy, “Your Diamond, love. I—”

“ _My_ Diamond?” a harsh laugh barked its way from my throat, sounding like Sarah Steel, my heart throbbing as if someone’s fist had taken the word ‘punchline’ a little too literally. On pure instinct, I had to punch back. “That’s funny, _hilarious_ , actually, because, ya see, I don’t actually _have_ any goddamn diamonds ever since I pawned the one she gave me, oh, fifteen years ago, give or take a few—”

“Diamond Daburu.” Nureyev’s voice was barely more than a strained whisper, but it silenced me instantly. My skull seemed to empty itself out to make room for this new information, unable to fit Diamond Daburu into my life on the _Carte Blanche_ with Nureyev. 

And then, suddenly my skull was full again, too full, about to _burst_. 

Shit, well, maybe it might make a kind of sense, I’d only been this blindsided once or twice before, once by Sarah Steel and once by Diamond herself. One had cost my brother his life, one had cost me my career. Both had broken my heart so that it was never the same as it had been before. The old betrayal seemed to sink into me all over again, only twice as bad. I shouldn’t have let myself get comfortable enough to get blindsided like this at all. I knew better. Didn’t I _know_ that when happiness and safety made their home behind my ribs that that was when I should be most vigilant, most on my guard, because the other shoe was about to drop so goddamn hard that it shattered domes and toppled buildings and broke the _absolute fuck_ out of my heart?

“ _Fuck,_ ” bubbled out of me, and it was like coughing up blood from a stab wound, — I remembered a knife that looked like an extension of Peter Nureyev’s hand in the sticky red light — like the words were the arterial gush of blood and I could not stem the flow, “Fuck, seriously? I mean, _fuck_ . H-how?” I realized the only explanation that might ease the pain, “Shit, _when?_ ” Maybe it was _before_ , somehow, before I had ever been ensnared by Diamond’s green eyes or Nureyev’s sharp smile.

“Juno, I swear to you,” Nureyev said, voice soft and sincere and _man_ , how I wanted to believe whatever he was going to tell me in that tone, “I didn’t know about you. If I had—”

No, _no no no_ , I had trusted that warm voice, and _no_ , I hadn’t wanted to hear that at all. Not at all. Somehow the mistress, nameless all those years had been the nameless thief himself and shouldn’t I have _known_ by now that my life followed a sick sense of humor like that? That my nameless rival and my nameless love were bound to be one and the same?

“ _Fucking hell_ , it was _you?_ ” Nureyev winced and my vision was blurry, “The, the other man _was you_?”

“Juno—” he tried, but I couldn’t listen, I couldn’t let that voice trick me again.

“The smuggler side-piece?” another harsh laugh, “I knew you’d played a lot of roles, but that? I mean, I guess it’s not too far from seductive thief, is it?”

“Juno—”

“Fuck, it's not like I can really blame her, can I?” I spat out bitterly and for the first time in so long, I really _wanted_ my words to inflict harm.

“What do you—?” Nureyev tried to ask but I was already hurling the answer at him.

“I mean, from the second you strolled into my office you’ve been nothing but trouble,” I knew it was a lie, a cruel lie, but when the pain was this big the only way to let any of it out was to shove it into someone else, “And forget upholding the goddamn law, here I am breaking the law _with you_ , and Diamond—

“You really think I'm going around driving Martian police officers to a life of crime, what, by being so _irresistible_?” Nureyev’s voice had taken on a brittle edge to it and _good_ , that meant my blows had landed.

“Well, I _was_ a detective, you know, and the evidence seems to—”

“No,” Nureyev hissed, and I wiped my eye, impatient, needing to see if his face reflected the desperation in his voice, “I will not take responsibility for that. With _either_ of you. Your decisions are your own, Juno, and Diamond's decisions were hers.” 

He looked desperate, alright, and… vindicated? I shuddered internally to see the similarity to the expression he’d worn at that crucial crossroads in Brahma, forced to choose between Mag and what was right. Somewhere deep, deep under the blinding pain and confusion, I knew that I did not want to ever be the reason Peter Nureyev felt that way. No matter what he’d done, no matter if he deserved it, “Well,” I sniffed, “She wasn’t exactly smuggling and distributing plasma all over Hyperion City _alone_.”

“Indeed, she was not,” Nureyev agreed, far surpassing the haughtiness of my tone, “Though I suspect she was responsible for the dissolution of that—”

“Oh, please,” I scoffed, “Spare me the spurned thief act!”

“I assure you, Juno,” Nureyev said gravely, his gaze hollow, “It is no act.”

This was a waste of _time_ . I didn’t give a shit about some smuggling ring many years defunct, barely a blip in the scheme of the black market on Mars, the corruption in Hyperion City. “I don't _care_ about the plasma,” I complained, throwing up my hands, “Hell, I never did — it’s a goddamn racket to begin with —” 

“You don't sound as though you truly want to know more about any of it.” Nureyev pointed out, and if I hadn’t recognized the anxious way he ran his hand back through his hair, I might have mistaken him for calm.

“I don’t _want_ to,” I countered, the curiosity like a gnawing hunger eating me from within, “I need to.”

Nureyev appeared to give it some consideration. For a few seconds, his dark eyes surveyed me and I wanted to lash out at the solicitous care plain on his face. It was not so different from his face after I had a nightmare, or when I couldn’t seem to drag myself out of bed, or when I poured another cup of coffee rather than eat a real breakfast. It was a _loving_ look and _to hell with that_ , he didn’t get to look at me like that right now, not when he was twisting my life story around on itself like some agonizing origami designed to mess with my head, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather get some sleep and—”

Seriously, as if I was going to be able to _sleep_ _?_ Answers probably wouldn’t make sleep come any easier, but I needed them like a junkie needs to squirt poison in their arm, “I’m sure. Now fucking tell me.”

Nureyev sat down at the edge of the bed and looked down at his palms as if seeing blood there, as if reckoning with his guilt in the answers I was demanding. Maybe he was figuring out what lies to tell, I couldn’t be sure, “What do you want to know?”

~Nureyev~

“Oh, hell, just _tell it_ , would you?” Juno snarled, in a manner quite as fierce as a feral animal in pain, the flash of his eye like a futile swipe of claws, “How did you even meet?”

As it happened, the night when I had first made the acquaintance of Diamond Daburu had never dimmed in my mind. The memory remained as clear and sharp as that first gleam of her green eyes, peering at me over the chipped rim of a highball glass. _‘Madam,’_ I’d said, turning away from my associate to face her, _‘If eavesdropping is your sport of choice, I advise you practice it in a safer venue than this one.’_

_Her eyes crinkled with amusement, “The danger’s half the fun, handsome,” she’d said, her voice rasping softly as she pointed out, “And I didn’t ask for your advice.”_

_I laughed at that and she’d smiled, her magenta lips as beautiful as the petals of a Mercurial snapdragon, and likely just as deadly, “My apologies, madam,” I’d said as I steered my associate away from her curious gaze, “I’m sure someone here will give you quite a show.”_

_“I’m sure_ someone _will, handsome.” her voice had wafted after me, suggestive, but I’d resisted looking back. Some minutes later when I’d given in to the temptation, she’d been gone, only a smudge of magenta on an empty glass to prove she’d been there at all._

“We met at a bar in Hyperion City,” I answered, back in the present, in the tense silence of the room that Juno and I shared, “ _The Cadmium Club_.”

Juno snorted, “ _Cadmium_? Really?” I cocked my head but did not lift my eyes to his face, “It’s just, that place was real shady, what the hell were you doing there?”

I couldn’t help but smile a little at that flattering glimpse into Juno’s perception of me, flawed though it was, “Why, I was involved in shady dealings, same as the other patrons. On the night I first encountered Diamond, I was persuading one of the Satan’s Diner druglords into getting into the plasma trade, knowing I had secured a supplier—”

“I don’t care about your shady goddamn plasma crimes,” Juno interrupted, impatient, “Diamond knew about it from day one?”

“I’ve often wondered myself, whether she knew from the start,” I admitted, “I don’t believe so. That first night we only… exchanged a few words. I could tell she was eavesdropping and I already was very protective of my secrets, but I believe I walked away before she heard anything that would have tied me to the plasma ring.”

“Aaaand the second time you met?” Juno prompted brusquely.

_‘There you are, handsome,’ a couple weeks had passed but I recognized her voice instantly, turning to find her smoking a cigarette on the fire escape beside me. She sounded happy to see me, relieved, even. No one had spoken to me that way since Brahma, and I couldn’t help but smile at her gratefully. She returned it, her face painted in the neon purples and reds bleeding up from the street, “I’ve been hoping I’d run into you again.”_

_“It appears we run in similar circles.” I’d remarked, tilting my head back to indicate the apartment and the party we’d both wound up at._

_She had shrugged, the strap of her indigo dress slipping slightly down her shoulder, “Never seen the merit of running in circles, handsome,” she’d quipped, an honest note in her voice piquing my curiosity, “But I like to see ‘em tire themselves out.”_

_With that she’d flicked her cigarette butt, still glowing red, past the fire escape railing and slinked past me back into the party, her hand brushing my arm, “Try not to get dizzy!” I’d called after her, finding my tongue and my wits nearly too late._

_She’d grinned back at me over her bare shoulder, and my heart had leapt at her approval._

I shook my head, “Same thing. I… We ran into each other a few times more. Brief, fleeting interactions. We would flirt and one of us would walk away and I… I would be terrified I’d never run into her again. And then I would.”

“Did you have any idea she was a cop?” Juno asked, and I relaxed infinitesimally when he seated himself by the head of the bed, relieved that he might have the patience to hear me out after all. He sounded as though some of the anger had leaked out of him and left him worn out.

“No. I suspected she had secrets, a hustle of her own, but we all did,” I explained, “It didn’t make any difference to me, if I’m being absolutely honest with you, Juno. Although I was invested in the plasma ring, I do not want to give you any illusion that I was _satisfied_. Nowhere near it. Every one of us was so secretive, so scheming, and there was something that set Diamond apart. She was outside of it, and the way she held herself, just by the look in her eyes and the set of her chin, I could tell she thought she was above it. And that she was probably right.” I was smiling faintly to myself, and I was glad Juno was behind me, but of course he’d heard it all in my voice.

“Holy crap,” he muttered, with a disbelieving laugh, “I… you really…?”

“Loved her? Yes,” I said, “I do not use the word lightly, you know.”

“Yeah… I know.”

“I didn’t love her yet, though, at that time,” I pointed out, “Though I believe I knew right away that I could. I’ll tell you no tales about love at first sight, but there was something of a spark at first sight. And each time I encountered her again… it was not merely her beauty, though that must have been enough to addle the minds of a great many lesser men, but her brazenness, the sharpness of her tongue, the way she could make you feel warm all over and you wouldn’t realize until an hour later that she’d actually insulted you.”

Juno snorted something like a laugh, “This is... really weird, Nureyev.”

“I know,” I sighed, and found the courage to chance a look over my shoulder at him. I would once have described his expression as ‘shell-shocked’, but unfortunately I was well-acquainted with how Juno looked, shaken in the wake of a bomb. It was the coldest comfort that he looked not quite _that_ unmoored, “I can stop.”

Juno shook his head, shutting his eye, “No. I wanna know. Knowing is better than whatever my imagination would do with it, I just…” his face scrunched up, “It’s like… hearing you describe her, it’s like… sorta how I saw her, and sorta how I see _you_ , and sorta maybe how you see _me_ , and,” he shuddered and opened his eye, meeting my gaze with a bravery I never could have summoned, “It’s just a lot.”

I considered what he’d said, “I see what you mean,” I said, “But you must believe me, Juno, the way I am in love with you, it… it’s unlike anything I’ve ever known.”

“But you _were_ in love with Diamond.”

“I was,” I confirmed, “But I was a younger and much different man then. You must know what I mean… I… is your love for me not different than your love for her?” It had to be the riskiest gamble I’d ever taken, including every time I’d ever wagered my life.

“It is,” Juno confirmed without a second’s hesitation, “Because I’m different.”

“One… loves differently after one’s heart has done it before, loved and lost,” my eyes prickled but I would not cry, “Yours was not the only one Diamond Daburu broke all those years ago.” Juno looked pained. I could see the conflict plainly on his face, as though he was tempted to offer me comfort for that old wound, but it was not a kindness he was capable of extending. I understood, “Do you want me to keep going or shall we sleep?”

“Keep going.” Juno said, and his eye squeezed shut, braced for impact.

“We were at _The Cadmium Club_ again, some weeks later. She’d finally stayed still long enough to let me buy her a drink. I remember I bought a bottle of wine, hoping it might keep her from disappearing on me again.” Juno snorted and I felt my cheeks color slightly, “I… am aware of the hypocrisy, thank you, love. Anyway, she teased me about it, the bottle, accused me of pretending at class.”

_‘It’s adorable,’ she’d said, taking an unladylike gulp of wine, “And you’re a good actor, handsome, and that pretty face helps you sell it. But I bet you grew up hungry on the streets same as me.”_

_I’d fidgeted, uneasy down to my very center at any allusion to my childhood, “It isn’t very good manners,” I’d pointed out airily, barely keeping the anxiety from my voice, “To thank someone for their generosity by calling them phony.”_

_“I said no such thing,” she had said, her voice softening in a way I’d never heard, a gentleness that made me want to take her in my arms and crush her against me, “I happen to think you’re very genuine, handsome. Your flaw is that you insist on_ trying _to be phony.”_

_I hadn’t known what to say to that, and luckily I’d been saved from the necessity of saying anything by a series of bangs and screams. The band had stopped playing with a discordant stutter and people were scurrying for the exits. I’d jumped to my feet and pulled her to her feet along with me, “Police raid,” I urged, “We need to go.”_

_“It’s not the police,” she’d said as I tugged her along by her wrist, “They would have announced it if it was a raid.”_

_“So it’s a gang,” I said, with a roll of my eyes at her nit-picking, “We still need to disappear!”_

_She’d grinned at me and laced her fingers with mine, “Go on, then, handsome! Whisk me away!”_

“Of course she knew it wasn’t the police,” Juno grumbled, “She was lying to you.” I wasn't sure how much I had said out loud, the memory was so encompassing.

“She was misleading me, at any rate,” I conceded, “But we hadn’t even exchanged names, I can hardly claim there was enough to call a lie.”

“ _Don’t_ defend her.” Juno gritted out

“I’m not defending her—”

“I know when that was, ya know,” Juno scowled, “The night the Gamma Girls shot up _Cadmium_ . I had to help break it up.” I swallowed against a lump in my throat. It was a unique torture, imagining a younger Juno trying to uphold the law in that dingy place. I imagined a wine bottle on it’s side in a sticky puddle, Juno’s boot causing it to roll along the floor and all the while him not knowing, “I was _sick_ thinking I’d find Diamond’s body among the casualties…” his eye caught mine and it widened slightly when he glimpsed some hint of her true whereabouts in my expression, “But she was with you, wasn’t she?” I nodded. Juno swore, “Where did you go?”

“I… we went to the place I’d been staying,” I answered, torn between my wish to apologize to Juno for the betrayal I’d known nothing of at the time, and the pain that the memory held for me on its own, “A squat in Satan’s Diner, not far from _Cadmium_.

Juno’s jaw worked for a moment and then he asked, “Was she drunk?” 

“She’d only just started her second glass of wine when we fled,” I answered, remembering vividly her hand in mine as we ran, the way her loud full laugh echoed off the buildings, “We were not drunk. Not on alcohol, anyway.”

Juno sucked in a breath through his nose, “That, that _goddamn_ …” he was losing a fight against tears, his voice thick as he insisted, “Tell me about it.”

“We spent the night together, Juno,” I answered diplomatically, “I do not think it will benefit you to know all of the intimate details.”

“Yeah, well,” Juno snapped, the pain making him grow sharp again, “I don't really super _care_ what you think right now, Nureyev! We've been _so_ honest with each other and you've known for a while she was my, my... but you didn't…” I bowed my head. He was completely right to be angry, of course. I had known since before the Utgard Express and Miasma, known since I’d looked Juno up, but I’d never expected to get close enough to him for it to matter. In a twisted way, it had been part of his allure back then, that he had been attached to the only person I'd loved. He had allure of his own to spare, but that had had its own forbidden attraction, “You _kept this from me!_ And now you're gonna tell me!” he was nearly shouting again, “Diamond kept me in the dark, and then you followed her _goddamn_ example, and just, I... if I say tell me, _tell me_. Got it?”

“Will you stop me if it's too painful?” I asked fruitlessly. I knew he would do no such thing.

Juno laughed bitterly, “I don't expect it to be anything less. _Tell me_.”

“What do you want to know?” I asked, pushing my glasses up onto my forehead and rubbing my eyes. 

“Who kissed who?” 

_We’d tumbled into the apartment, breathless with laughter and the labored breath of running. I’d reached past Diamond to lock the door and when I’d lifted my eyes from the lockpad, they’d landed on her. She was leaning her shoulders back against the door, but her slim body angled towards me. She didn’t say a word as she shrugged off her shiny black jacket, her chest and shoulders heaving as she caught her breath. Her eyes were glued to mine, her lips parted in question, in an invitation…_

“...I kissed her.”

“And she kissed you back?” _her mouth had pressed up against mine, opening encouragingly, the tang of wine still on her tongue as it slid slick against mine. Her hands had pressed up my back and pulled me closer…_ I nodded. “Right away?” Juno asked. 

“Yes.” I confirmed and Juno sucked in a pained breath, same as if I had struck him, “Juno—” 

“Listen,” Juno’s voice was strangled but he went on stubbornly, fiercely, “I know you _both_ too well to think it stopped with some goddamn heavy petting, so just _don’t_. Where did you go from there? Couch, bed, wall?”

_Her hands had pulled me and I had gladly let myself be pulled, like a meteor flying happily into the fire of her atmosphere. She pushed my jacket off and it fell with hers on the ground and she was plucking open my buttons and her hands were surprisingly calloused on my skin and that just made me want her_ more _. I chased her mouth and her touch, one hand fisting in her short black hair while the other found and tugged open the tiny zipper of her dress. I needed to lay her down under me but I couldn’t wait another second and when we bumped into the kitchen counter, it presented a perfect solution. I hardly knew even in the moment if I lifted her or she jumped but then she was perched there on my counter and a coffee mug was smashing on the floor, and her stockinged legs were wrapping around my hips and I was trailing bites and kisses down her neck to her breasts, and she was saying, “Dee, call me Dee.”_

_I knew it couldn’t be a real name, but I didn’t care, “Darius,” I’d kissed into her chest my own lie, “I’m Darius.”_

“Counter,” I admitted to Juno, “In… in the kitchen.”

“ _Damn it!_ ” he spat and covered his face, giving an alarming little scream into his hands. I knew it was unwise to give him more detail than necessary, but how could I deny him when I’d already denied him the truth for so long? His shoulders bounced and I couldn’t tell if he was sobbing or hyperventilating and like the fool I have always been, I reached for him. He flinched violently from my touch, rearing back, “ _Don’t fucking touch me!_ ” he snarled and I reeled away from him, my hands up. His face was wet with tears and contorted but I saw a flash of regret and he forced out, “Just, n-not right now. Not, I can’t, _I can’t…_ ”

~Juno~

I had never hated my vivid imagination more than in that moment. I could see it so _fucking_ clearly, as if it was playing out right in front of me. Nureyev’s face, younger and softer, slack and intense with lust and adrenaline. Diamond just the way I’d known her, long legs wrapped around him, green eyes fever-bright. Dress and jackets pushed aside, flies and panties tugged out of the way, their beautiful lean bodies flushed and sweaty and writhing together, familiar moans bouncing off kitchen tile. It would be goddamn sexy if it wasn’t so heartbreaking, if it didn’t feel like their matching high heels grinding me down like a cigarette butt, like I was just ash, just dirt, not worthy of either of them, not then, not now, not ever.

“Juno,” Nureyev was saying, far away on the _Carte Blanche_ , “Love, you have to breathe, please.”

I _was_ breathing, I was doing nothing _but_ breathing, sucking in breaths just about as fast as anyone could. My chest was tight with heartbreak and my throat tight with tears and my face was so hot and scrunched that it hurt. 

I hadn’t seen Diamond until the day _after_ the Gamma Girls shot up _The Cadmium Club_ , when she’d walked into the precinct as if she hadn’t failed to answer her comms for hours and hours. _‘Babe, I was so worried, what the fuck!’ I’d greeted, and yeah, maybe that wasn’t the nicest way to say_ hi _but I’d been scared out of my skull that she was dead or being tortured or trafficked or worse._

_“Juno, please,” Diamond had said, that voice of hers wrapping around me like a hug and a little like a chokehold, “You can’t fuss like this every time I do my job.”_

_“I’m not_ fussing _,” I’d bristled, taking her hand, “I’m just relieved to see you in one piece, that’s all.”_

_“Well, maybe wait to show me how_ relieved _you are ‘til we’re home, gorgeous?” she’d glanced around and I’d noticed the eyes of our coworkers on us. Captain Hijikata was wearing his customary scowl and Rita’s eyebrow was cocked and several others were pretending that they weren’t looking._

_“Oh, I will.” I’d promised, and I had. I’d ordered dinner and drank only a little too much and I’d eaten her out for what must have been hours, but I’d still felt disappointment like a void in me when she finally nudged me away and said it was time for bed._ I hadn’t _known_ she’d been with anyone else, like an idiot I hadn’t even questioned her absence. Like an idiot I’d _trusted_ her. If I’d known to look for it, would I have tasted Nureyev on her skin? Would I have smelled the faintest whiff of his cologne on her hair? Did he even smell that way back then? She knew and I didn’t and it all just _made me ache._

Nureyev’s voice was counting and even though I wanted to scream at him a little, I tried to time my breathing to the numbers. Eventually, the present grew a little more solid than the past and I opened my eye. Nureyev was kneeling at the foot of the bed, a careful, respectful distance between us on the mattress. His face was drawn with worry and he was still counting. I trusted him, I had worked so hard to nurture trust with him and yet, he’d been hiding this from me. I wanted to crawl into his lap right now, to take comfort from his smell and his voice and his touch, but how could I when it was him who had peeled back my skin to reveal a new depth to my old injury than I’d even known was there?

“I’ve been thinking about Diamond lately,” I said, interrupting the stream of numbers from his mouth, “Buddy and Vespa’s wedding, ya know. It… brought stuff up. R-reminded me how stressful it was to plan my own back in the day.” I scoffed, “Big goddamn waste of time…”

Nureyev’s expression grew very grave, “Juno,” he said, “I swear on my life, I never knew she had someone at home. If I'd known—”

“Would it really have stopped you?” I asked. I knew how irresistible Diamond could be, how intoxicating, how adept at getting precisely what she wanted from people. And I knew how persuasive Nureyev could be, too. _Shit, did I have a type..._ “You've stolen and killed and lied and you expect—” 

“As have you, Juno.” I hissed at the painful reminder. He was right, of course, he was damn right, “I'm sorry,” he sounded like he meant it, “So deeply sorry for all that I have contributed to your pain… but do not pretend you have not erred in many of the ways I have.”

I shook my head, stubborn, “I haven't ever helped someone cheat,” Even as I said it, I knew it was bullshit, knew that I couldn't say for sure. There had been plenty of drunken nights in unfamiliar beds, plenty of quick and dirty trysts in alleyways that were little more than a sticky blur now. I didn't know if those anonymous people had fiancées at home, I hadn’t asked because I hadn’t cared. I hadn’t wanted to know. I wasn’t fucking them to learn about them, I was fucking them to forget about _me._

But still… it sounded like what happened between Nureyev and Diamond could hardly be categorized as a one-night fling like those. But like me… perhaps he had been blind to what he had not wanted to see. Or maybe I was just very easy for Diamond to forget me, to hide me. 

“I admit it freely, Juno,” Nureyev was saying, running a hand through his hair again, “You are a far better person than I.”

“So you fucked my fiancée on your kitchen counter,” I said, the rude truth of the words stomping off my tongue. Nureyev flinched. It didn’t make me feel better at all to see that, “Then what?”

Nureyev clenched his teeth, I could tell from the way the angle of his jaw sharpened. He swallowed, his eyes glazing again as he sifted through his memories. _He misses her,_ the cruelest voice in my head observed, _He loved her more than he could ever love you. She loved him more than she could ever love you. You should have just gotten out of their way, little monster._

“After that,” Nureyev said, wearily, “We began… spending more time together,” he chose the words so delicately, I wondered if their real meaning was _we fucked on every surface we could find._ Probably, “We… made love, yes,” Oh, “But what set Diamond apart was all the _talking_ we did. I hadn’t talked like that since Brahma. Talking not for business, not for a cover, but purely for the pleasure of each other’s company, to know each other better.” the fond twinkle in his eyes that had been stabbing me in the gut dimmed, and his expression faltered, “Or… that’s how it seemed, anyway. I will never know how much of that was real and how much of it was a lie.

“I knew she was lying, but we were all lying. She was more honest with me than most, or at any rate, I was infatuated enough to believe that she was. She was very curious about the plasma ring, and ultimately that was what gave her away; she asked me a question about a client I knew I had never mentioned, one who the police had just detained.” Nureyev’s expression was bitter with the old conundrum as he went on, “Now, I know you purportedly don’t _care_ about the plasma, Juno — despite thinking it should be a freely available resource, a goal which I and my collaborators were in fact trying to make a reality — but I had invested a great deal of time and resources into this endeavor, and much as Diamond — or Dee, as I knew her then — had stolen my heart, I could not risk the HCPD getting involved. 

“I did not know why she had not already reported me, and I confronted her about it. I don't know if she was telling me the truth, but she comforted me that I need not worry, the captain had put a rookie on the case, hoping to make an example—”

It took a second for my brain to catch up with Nureyev’s words, lagging as it was trying to line up these events beside my own history, but when my thoughts caught up with the word ‘rookie’, I couldn’t hold back the scoff that exploded out of me, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” I fumed, “‘A rookie’, is that really what she called me?”

Nureyev blanched, “You were the one the captain wanted to make an example of?”

“She was _that_ sure I would fail?”

“I…” Nureyev shifted uneasily, “She was confident that the HCPD would not be tracking us down.”

“Well, _shit_ , without her sloppiness we probably wouldn’t have,” I admitted angrily, “But, I mean… _fuck_ , I _was_ a rookie but I was also her goddamn fiancée! She was sleeping next to me every night,” Nureyev’s eyes flicked away guiltily, and my stomach twisted, “Every night she wasn’t _with you_ , I guess, but, but… we were supposed to get _married_ ,” my voice came out in a pathetic whine, the same one Diamond always detested, “ _She_ proposed to _me_!”

_I could never quite shake the surprise in her eyes when I had said ‘Yes! Of course, I’ll marry you!’ She had corrected it quickly, within the millisecond, but I always had a good eye for detail. She hadn’t expected me to say yes, and I was never sure what that meant. How many nights had I spent in our bed, making love, or with her asleep beside me, or with her space empty, wondering why she would ask if she didn’t expect me to say yes? Had she wanted me to say no? Had she made a bad bet on my soul-deep fear of commitment?_

_I’d tried to ask Mick what he thought, tried to ask Benten, and even Rita, who was hardly more than my secretary in those days. All of them had thought I was crazy, though, that it was just Juno being Juno. Needing to keep doubt alive, needing to find the imperfection in the seemingly perfect happiness I’d waltzed into somehow._ Diamond loves you _, they had assured me, and they had believed it. But I couldn’t quite make myself believe it, no matter how much I trusted her. I’d seen the hesitation, the disappointment in her eyes at the prospect of a lifetime shared with me._

“Juno?” Nureyev looked worried and I realized I was crying again.

I pawed at my face, impatient, “So, Diamond wanted in on your p-plasma scheme?”

He nodded, “She said she was interested in the money. She spoke about having debts?”

I grimaced, “Of course, she did,” I confirmed, “The academy isn’t cheap, our apartment, my car—”

Nureyev actually gasped, “Don't tell me the car you had when we—”

I smiled ruefully, “Yeah, that car, the ‘death-trap’ we ditched when we took the Ruby 7. Bet you didn’t realize it was quite _that_ old, did—”

“Juno—” he looked apologetic, so deeply goddamn apologetic. For some reason, it made me furious.

“As if I give a shit about the _car_ ?” I demanded, “Nureyev, with everything I've lost and broken, you think that _car_ means anything to me?” a mirthless laugh escaped me, “She and I must have fucked in that stupid car at least fifty times, I hope they melted the damn thing down to make nails or something.” Nureyev looked suitably cowed by my outburst, so I pressed on, “So, what, she told you a sob story about her debts and then what? You just let her join the team? That doesn’t sound like you.”

Nureyev gave me a peculiar look, “I suppose I was somewhat more open-minded in my younger years, but… is it really so difficult to believe, Juno? Loner though I may be, I've always known the value of a reliable partner.” my skepticism must have shown on my face; he hesitated a second before saying, “Like our collaboration infiltrating the Utgard Express?”

“Don’t,” I said, gritting my teeth against the unpalatable comparison, “Don’t compare it to us.”

Nureyev looked contrite, but despite his gentle face and his gentle voice, his words stung, “I don’t mean to be callous, Juno, truly I don’t. But there were similarities. Much like you, Diamond was clever, resourceful, good in a fight, and had insider knowledge of Hyperion City and its police force. She and I had good…” _chemistry_ , he almost said, but apparently thought better of it. “We were compatible, as people.” his brows lifted, “And of course, there was every likelihood that she would have turned on me had I not included her.”

I hated the truth in his comparisons, it was so _sterile_ , made us seem so _interchangeable_. Like he could so easily boil anyone down to bullet points, like casing the site of a potential heist. I growled, “Pick your goddamn story and stick to it, Nureyev! Were you fools in love or were you crime partners of convenience? Which was it?”

Nureyev looked at me, fond and apologetic, “You know better than anyone, Juno, those things are not mutually exclusive.”

~Nureyev~

Juno flinched at the comparison, “ _Please,_ ” he said, anger and hurt blatant in his expression, “Stop comparing me to her.”

“Very well, Juno,” I acquiesced, “I won’t do it again.”

He glared at me, all skepticism, and the look was like a knife placed perfectly between my ribs. I had to avert my eyes. I had allowed myself to grow too comfortable with seeing trust in Juno’s gaze, and to have that bright eye trained on me with such unmistakable _doubt_ was more than I could stand. We sat a long moment in silence before Juno broke it with a huff, stating scornfully, “Well, it was stupid of you.”

“Pardon me?” I had behaved over the years with no shortage of stupidity, and it mattered a great deal to me which time Juno was referring to. Had I been stupid to trust Diamond, or had I been stupid to hazard telling him about it?

“You were stupid to include her,” he clarified, and I felt the slightest shiver of relief, “She cost you the whole damn plasma deal.”

Any relief I felt soured in my mouth. I’d never known exactly how the HCPD had figured us out, the mystery of it had been vastly overshadowed by my first heartbreak, “I have always suspected that it might have been she that gave us away,” I admitted honestly, and risked the request, “Would you... care to tell me how?”

Juno’s lip curled with distaste, “No, actually, I would not.” I looked away, too cowardly to meet his blazing stare. I heard him sigh, and then he said, “The short version is just that suddenly the black market plasma cartridges were showing up in more regulated channels. The mainstream providers were getting hacked by police passcodes, shit like that.”

I snorted a harsh laugh, “Of course, Dee got sloppy when she was feeling cocky.”

_‘Oh, Darius, they can’t catch us!’ she’d said so many times, right before tripping an alarm._

“…Y-yeah,” Juno said, and I glanced at him furtively, unable to read his conflicted face, “Yeah, exactly. She got sloppy,” he squared his shoulders, that irrepressible stubbornness of his in the set of his jaw, “And look, I might’ve been a _rookie_ , but even then I was a halfway-decent detective. I recognized those signs that everyone was so conveniently blind to, and I went to Captain Hijikata and I _told_ him something was fishy, that the HCPD was somehow involved, but he didn’t wanna hear it!” I adored him for the indignation in his voice, that all these years later he was no less infuriated by the corruption that ran deep down to Mars’ molten iron core, “He gave me the brush-off, told me to find a different angle and that it was _nothing_ , not a lead _worth pursuing_ , as if it wasn’t the _only_ goddamn lead we even had!” he scoffed, shook his head, “And I could _see_ it is his eyes. He was _scared_. He knew the force was corrupt as hell, everybody knows that, but I don’t think he’d honestly considered that an officer might undermine the whole planet’s goddamn financial infrastructure.”

“How did you convince him?” I asked, undeniably charmed by the thought of Juno at that age, all inexperience and moral integrity. 

“I didn’t,” he shrugged, “He told me not to look into my ‘brothers in arms’ or whatever, but I did it anyway. Or, well, Rita did—”

“Naturally.” I intoned.

For the first time in long minutes, fondness thawed Juno’s posture as he talked about Rita, “We’d only known each other a few months, but she believed in me. Or in my theory, anyway. And that was around when I started taking her seriously, realized what a valuable ally she was. She started looking for police security codes being used erroneously, and everywhere they were cropping up, it was always the one-five-one code, so I knew it was someone from _our_ precinct.”

“Did you…” I had to ask, “Did you suspect it might be Diamond?”

The fondness wilted into sadness, an old bitter sadness, “I really didn’t want to. I didn’t even want to consider it, at first. She was… I mean, she was part of why I’d even _become_ a cop, and I… We were getting _married_.” The word cracked painfully in his throat and he swallowed a couple of times, “But… she was different. Distracted. She was gone at weird times and would come home with crap excuses…” guilt churned in my stomach as Juno’s eye glazed over, transporting himself back to Diamond’s lies, “She started getting annoyed when I’d talk about our future, was reluctant to set a date for the wedding.” There was no mistaking that the old wound still hurt him and I wished more than anything that I could draw him into my arms and comfort him, but I had forfeited that privilege.

“I…” this obviously pained Juno to admit, “Suspected she might not want to… marry me anymore. That she might not go through with it. I… _tried_ to reconnect with her, to make her happy, but I just _couldn’t_.” he choked back tears, “She’d always had high standards, but then she was always finding something wrong with anything I did, and well,” I _hated_ it, watching him justify the painful blows she’d clearly dealt him, “I mean, I was a serious fuckup at the time, working too hard and drinking _so_ much, trying so hard to compensate for not feeling like a real fucking person, so no wonder she had complaints,” he rubbed tears roughly from his eye, flapping a hand at me and adding in a rough rush, “But then you must know how critical she was, always so fucking hard to please.”

Suddenly, I found myself on the spot, “Right,” I lied, “Of course.”

Juno swore, “ _Come on,_ Nureyev,” he accused, “I know you can lie better than that!”

I sighed, “Not to you, Juno.”

He bristled and I instantly regretting saying it, “Funny, it’s never stopped you before,” I opened my mouth to deny it but he went on, “In fact, it _seems_ like you’ve been doing a pretty great fucking job of it, keeping all this under wraps.” He crossed his arms and pinned me with a look.

“I…” I could only offer the truth, feeble though it was in the face of his disappointment in me, “It seemed kinder not to tell you, Juno.”

“Bullshit,” he decreed instantly, “It was just _easier._ ”

“And in light of how well this discussion is going, I was right to have trepidation.” Juno sighed and I forced my shoulders to relax, unsure when they’d hunched up to my ears, “I am so sorry, Juno,” I said again, uselessly, “Anything I can do to make this easier for you, I will do it.” 

Juno just looked at me for a moment, his eye searching my face. He looked so tired, weariness drawn in every angle of his lovely face. I felt the weight of blame heavy in my gut as I watched tears well in that eye again before he sighed, and his shoulders sagged, and he said quietly, “Nureyev, just tell me the truth.”

“I, I have been trying to.” I pointed out, carefully keeping any hint of accusation from my voice.

There was the faintest flicker of a smile, self-deprecating, “Okay, so… let’s try that again. Where were we… Diamond wasn’t critical of you?”

_‘Damn, you’re good at that, handsome,” she’d said, the first time she’d seen me pocket someone’s wallet._

_“Clever boy,” she’d said, when I’d explained how we’d been disguising the plasma cartridges as canned salmon fluff._

_“Good one!” she’d crowed, amidst her loud, raucous laugh, each time I’d told a joke._

_“So gorgeous,” she’d praised as she rid me of my clothes; “So delicious,” she’d sighed, wiping my slick from her chin; “So good,_ so good _,” she’d panted as I’d coaxed her closer and closer to the edge; and “Oh, Darius,” lining my jaw with hazy afterglow kisses, she’d said, “You’re by far the best I’ve ever had.”_

When I’d first realized that my Dee and Juno’s Diamond were the same, that she had compared us and somehow found _him_ wanting, I had thought I might be reduced to ash by the affront. But at the time, I had not thought of the others. I had thought of little but the sweet hot bliss of loving and being loved, basking in her effusive praise.

I shook my head, “No. Not especially critical.”

Juno studied me, and I hoped he could not see it on my face. But of course, my dear detective could always read the signs, “Lemme guess,” he said, wryly, after a moment’s consideration, “She made you feel like you were the center of the universe? Like everything you did was brilliant, like whatever you both were doing before you met each other was, like... could hardly even be called _living_ at all?”

The pain of it caught me by surprise, Juno’s diagnosis as precise and to the point as a surgeon’s scalpel, “Y-yes,” I admitted, impatiently flicking tears from my eyes with one hand, “Why, Juno, it felt exactly like that.”

“It figures,” he said with a one-shouldered shrug, “I was trying to plan our wedding while she was off honeymooning with you.”

Like a twist of the blade, “Juno—”

He shook his head, “I figured she might be cheating, ya know. I... there was too much that didn’t add up, and I _knew_ she was hiding something. She was a good liar, too,” a glance at me, a bitter laugh, “You’re not the only one with a type, Nureyev.” I tried to return his unhappy smile, but I managed barely a grimace, “Anyway, it was easier to believe that I wasn’t enough for her, than that she was the kinda rotten cop we both hated. That… it was us against them, we were supposed to be the good cops, the kind Hyperion City _needed_ so fucking bad.”

He fell silent for a moment, ruminating on that. It was obvious that Diamond betraying the values and goals that Juno had believed they shared had hurt him even more deeply than the romantic betrayal. It amazed me, as it always did, to see how that fire in him, that powerful moral blaze, remained undimmed. Like a flower blooming despite all odds in the caustic desert sand, Juno remained so noble in a universe that unrelentingly offered him little more than corruption, greed, and dishonesty. He made me want to be good, want to be honest. I had tried so often to smother those impulses, to bury them under the shrewd necessity of survival. It was pathetic, but I couldn’t help but wonder, would Juno ever see goodness in me again? See the potential for trust and commitment? Or had I suffocated that possibility at last, and pushed even Juno’s heart past the point of forgiveness?

“Anyway, she…” Juno’s voice startled me slightly from my thoughts as he went on to explain, “She got sloppy. She slipped up, and didn’t wipe the access history from the spaceport control pad one night and that tripped one of Rita’s sweeps for one-five-one codes, and we knew that that had to be where the goods were changing hands.”

I winced; that was where it had all gone to pieces, “The sting.” I said.

“Yeah,” Juno confirmed, “The sting.” His face contorted into a bitter rictus of shame, “Which I botched fucking completely.”

~Juno~

“Juno,” Nureyev said my name in a soothing tone, but he clearly didn’t know what comfort to offer. I _had_ botched it, we both knew it.

“You were too slippery to get caught, though.” I deflected.

Nureyev shrugged, offered a somewhat apologetic smile, “You know me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, “When trouble arises, you disappear.”

I regretted the words the second they left my lips, Nureyev flinching back from me as if I’d socked him in a sore spot, which I guess I had, “Juno, _please._ ”

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” I was still trying to wrap my head around the new revelation of Nureyev’s role back in those days, but that was no excuse to wield his past against him. I kept doing it on some vicious old instinct, but really I didn’t want to hurt him. 

“Tell your story?” he prompted, more meekly than I’d ever heard him.

“I… you would have gotten away no matter what,” I reassured, “The sting was a goddamn disaster thanks to me, plenty of chance to slip away.” Nureyev responded with only a nod. My mind traced back over the events of that day, and for the first time I tried to transpose Nureyev over the rival I had briefly overheard, “I… followed her to… I guess your place, earlier in the day the sting,” I explained, shutting my eyes against the painful confirmation I’d gotten that day, “Lurked around long enough to hear her kiss you good morning and say she loved you before I ran as fast as I could to the nearest watering hole and tried to see how much bourbon it would take to drown a rookie cop. When it was time for the sting, I was late and in no condition, and I…”

Nureyev’s voice was low and sheepish, “I remember.”

For some reason, I hadn’t been expecting that and it dragged a groan out of me, “Of course, you do…” I muttered.

“Forgive me, love,” Nureyev said and I ached with the familiarity of it, the easy endearment making me want to go back in time when forgiveness had been an easier currency for us to trade, “But it was… memorable.” I groaned again at that, “Not only on account of the chaos, but, well… you did shatter the romantic fantasy I had been inhabiting with Diamond. My honeymoon, to use your term.”

I examined his expression, trying to pick apart the hazy memory to tell how that could possibly be the case, “I… did?” I finally asked.

“Indeed, you did, Juno,” he nodded stiffly, “I was just within the ship, after all, I heard every word.” I tried harder to remember what exactly I’d said — as I had plenty of times over the years — but I just couldn’t, they were obscured by my drunkenness at the time and the intervening years.

“What…” I swallowed against the dryness of my throat, “Will you tell me what I said?”

“Are you certain you want to know, Juno?” Nureyev asked gently.

I nodded, “Yeah.”

“ _‘Diamond Daburu, get your ass out here.’ ”_ he recited my words calmly, but I was sure I’d screamed them, could remember how hoarse and hungover I’d been the next day, “You good-for-nothing, lying, cheating son-of-a-bitch.” Nureyev’s voice trembled ever so slightly as he went on, emotions warring in the clear depths of his eyes as they refused to meet my gaze directly, “I trusted you, I loved you, you made me a promise, goddammit, or is this ring on my finger some kind of sick joke? You should be ashamed of yourself, you’re as crooked as the rest of them, and you broke my heart, you, how could you do this to me, I swear I’ll fucking kill you if you don’t—’ ” he stopped and cleared his throat, “I have to assume that it was then they finally managed to subdue you.”

“Falco had to stun me twice before I went down.” I confirmed through tightly gritted jaws.

“We… got away. As you know. And I…” he cleared his throat again, “I confronted her about what I’d overheard, quite as tearful and incensed as you had been, if not a great deal less inebriated. She… made excuses. I…” he hesitated for a long time, and I hoped he wasn’t preparing to go into detail about their confrontation; I really didn’t think I could take that. Finally, he went on, “To tell you the truth, Juno, as you’ve asked that I do, I came very close to doing as you threatened and killing her.”

“Why didn’t you?” I bit out, before I could so much as consider reeling the words back in.

Something dark and bitter overtook Nureyev’s expression, “I had resolved not to kill another person I loved, if it was avoidable. And for all she had broken my heart and cost me my hustle, I loved her still.”

“You didn’t take her with you, did you?” I asked, aghast at the possibility as it dawned on me.

Nureyev shook his head almost violently, “Absolutely not. I kicked her out in the Cerberus Province, ditched the ship, and got out of dodge on the next starbound vessel. I... don’t know what became of her.” A curious glint in his eyes as he couldn’t resist asking, “Do you?”

“Last I heard, she was working security for a mafioso in Olympus Mons,” I said, “But that was years ago.”

Nureyev nodded, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the new information, “And you, Juno… that sting precipitated your departure from the Police Department.”

I couldn’t help scoffing at that, “That’s a polite way to say they kicked me off the force. But yeah. And I mean, I can hardly blame them,” I pointed out, “The captain had gotten shot in the leg in all the insanity and I'd made a total mess of a high stakes sting almost single-handedly, cost them a big case. And even though the plasma smuggling stopped, we didn’t have anyone to prosecute. I lost my career and my fiancée in one go.”

“Did you see her again?” Nureyev asked quietly.

I shook my head, “I couldn’t go back to our place. It was the first time I slept on Rita’s couch,” his eyebrow twitched and I suspected he wanted to ask about the subsequent times, but I ignored it, “I went back to Diamond’s apartment once to get some of my stuff. Rita watched the security feeds for me to make sure I didn’t run into her, though. I thought about waiting and confronting her, broke some of her shit while I made up my mind, but when that didn’t make me feel better I figured punching her or yelling at her wouldn’t either, so I just left.”

Nureyev nodded his understanding, and silence stretched out between us as we both mulled over what had been said. I wanted to crawl into his lap… and I also still wanted to punch him. And I wanted to cry, but I was too tired and emotionally numbed to dredge up any tears, “You know,” he said, interrupting the quiet that had gone on for several minutes, “I vowed to myself for years that I would never return to Mars.”

I snorted at the layers of irony that seemed to wrap around each of us, “Bet that’s one vow you’re sorry you broke.”

“No, never.” he said at once, eyes boring into me, “I could never regret meeting you, Juno.”

Maybe I did have some tears left after all, “Nureyev…” I cautioned, shaking my head slowly.

“I am in love with you, Juno,” he said, painfully sincere, “A love that runs far deeper and is more selfless than I could have fathomed all those years ago with Diamond. I…” his hand covered mine on the bed, as light and tentative as a whisper, “Tell me, do you hate me? Have I at last pushed your generous nature beyond its limits?”

Part of me wanted to punish him, wanted to leave him guessing, but I was shaking my head before I could even consider it, “I… don’t hate you,” I assured, “But I…” I tugged a hand through my hair, my head swimming, “This is a lot. I need… I…”

“Anything.” Nureyev promised breathlessly, leaning closer.

“Space!” I blurted out, feeling crowded and cornered all of a sudden and jumping up from the bed, “Give me, I dunno, a few days. To… process or whatever.”

Disappointment and fear flashed across Nureyev’s face as I got closer to the door, but he obliged, “Absolutely, Juno. As much time as you need.”

Another question occurred to me, “Can I tell Rita?”

I could plainly see how uneasy he was at the prospect of more of his precious secrets being shared, but he nodded, “I don’t see any reason why not.” one corner of his mouth frowned, “I suppose it was only a matter of time before I earned her wrath.”

“Oh, please,” I denied, “This will probably just get added to the pile of reasons she hates Diamond.” Nureyev’s eyebrows hitched up, “She asks me every few years if she should hack her comms and corrupt all her shit, reroute her funds. I guess she’ll be asking every few _months_ once she knows Diamond hurt you, too.”

Nureyev appeared to consider that, “If Rita should pose the same question to me, I make no promises that I will dissuade her.”

“Yeah, I get that.” I said, and shifted my weight from one foot to the other a couple times before the tension finally became too much for me, “I’m… gonna go now.”

And I left, shuffling to my own cold room in a daze.

~Nureyev~

“Hey, Mistah Ransom!” I endeavored to conceal how startled I was by Rita’s greeting, as my head shot up, my attention pulled from my comms.

“Hello, Rita.” I said as casually as I could. It had been nearly a week since Juno had left my room holding yet another secret of mine in his hands. I’d given him my permission to divulge what we had discussed to Rita and I kept waiting for the diminutive woman’s not-so-diminutive ire to be turned on me, but perhaps Juno had been right about that concern being unfounded. He had known her a long time, after all, and surely knew her far better than I did. And there was nothing in Rita’s demeanor that suggested anything but friendliness, so I willed myself to relax, “What brings you to this part of the ship?” Rita tended to spend most of her time in the kitchen or the lounge, and as Juno tended to spend his time with her, I had tried to make myself scarce, which is how I came to be ensconced in a disused storage closet, well and completely out of their way.

“I was looking for you, of course!” she said, “I need your help with somethin’!”

“Oh?” I prompted, stowing my comms away in my pocket.

“That’s right!” Rita chirped, grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me up with surprising strength, “ _Ooh,_ this is SOFT!” she exclaimed, fingers scrunching appreciatively in the fabric of my sleeve, “And PRETTY,” she added as she guided me along into the corridor, “You look real nice today, Mistah Ransom, not that you don’t look nice _every day_ , but sometimes you look even more nice and today must be one of those ‘more nice’ days, ‘cause you look real pretty in this soft pretty thing you got on. Say,” she turned to me as we hurried along nearly as fast as she was talking, “Whaddya call this kinda soft pretty thing anyway?”

I blinked at her and cocked my head to one side, “A… blouse?” I responded, nonplussed. I knew that my wardrobe could be rather daring at times, but there was very little daring about the bell-sleeved surplice blouse I wore at present.

“A _blouse!_ ” Rita growled exultantly, continuing to drag me along, “You know all kindsa fancy words, Mistah Ransom! Like ‘blouse’ and ‘serene’ and ‘succinct’ and…” Rita continued to rattle off words that were apparently unfamiliar to her as she steered me towards the _Carte Blanche’_ s cabins, hers in particular, “...and ‘misdirection’ and ‘reconcile’ and ‘interfer’—”

“Rita,” I interrupted, as we reached the door to her cabin, “What manner of assistance do you need from me? What is the matter in your—”

“Just somethin’ that’s been botherin’ me for a while,” she said offhandedly as she opened the door and nudged me inside, “You’ll take good care of it, _or else!”_

“What—?” I asked as the door shut behind me, “Rita?” I asked, as the lockpad beeped at her a few times, the lock audibly engaging.

“I’m real sorry, Mistah Ransom,” Rita said through the door, “But you and Mistah Steel are _way_ too stubborn and in love to deal with this on your own, but lucky for you, you got Rita to give you a nice loving _shove_ in the right direction!”

“Me and…” I glanced over my shoulder, immediately spotting Juno on Rita’s bed, sporting an apologetic and embarrassed frown.

“Look,” he said, “It wasn’t my idea—”

“ _Of course_ , it wasn’t _your_ idea, Mistah Steel!” Rita crowed through the door, “You were waaaay too busy mopin’ and whinin’ and over-thinkin’ so hard you started makin’ _my_ head hurt, so I had to come to the rescue, _as usual!_ ”

“ _Rescue?_ ” Juno’s voice cracked irritably around the word, “Is _that_ what you call this, Rita? Because from where _I’m_ sitting, it looks _a lot_ more like _interfering!_ ”

“Oh, dear…” I muttered, as much too late I worked out the pattern in some of the ‘fancy words’ Rita had been babbling about on the way over here. I really ought to know better than to underestimate her by now.

“I know for a fact that where you’re sittin’ is plenty comfy, Mistah Steel,” Rita countered inanely, “‘Cause I spend a lotta time there on accounta it’s my bed and speakin’a which, you two betta make sure to wash everything up after you do whatever dirty romantic stuff you’re gonna do once you—”

“That won’t be necessary, Rita,” I interrupted, keeping my voice as calm and even as possible, “I assure you, Juno and I won’t be doing anything to soil your bedding, whether you lock us in here or not.”

“That’s exactly what Sir Lionel of Wensleydale would say!” Rita accused, “But he’s just as fancy and stubborn as you so—”

“I’m sorry, _who?_ ” I asked.

“He’s a character from one of her streams.” Juno provided.

“He ain’t just _any_ character!” Rita insisted hotly from the hall, “And he ain’t from just _any_ stream! Sir Lionel of Wensleydale is one of the most tragic and most handsome characters in _Noble Knights of the Neufchatel Nebula_ and don’t you act like you don’t think so, too, Mistah Steel, because I _know_ how much you cried when it looked like he had got killed in the skirmish of Jarlsberg before he could reunite with Sir Devon of Havarti!”

“I don’t believe I follow,” I said, before Juno could object to Rita’s accusation, “What do these cheese knights have to do with anything?”

“Who said anything about cheese?” Rita asked, but before I could say a word, she had resumed her frenetic explanation, “The point is you two dummies are being _just_ like Sir Lionel and Sir Devon in season fourteen, it’s time to kiss and make up already because I can’t fast-forward and I'm tireda seeing you moping around the ship like you’re a couple of handsome space knights who both think it was the other one who tried to kill them when _really_ it was King Limburger pittin’ them against each other because he’s a big dumb mean king who don’t understand the meanin’ of true love! And then before you know it you’ve wasted _three seasons_ hatin’ each other and King Limburger dies anyway, and then you chase the same bandit and wind up stuck on a boring desert island and only _then_ do you finally realize that you’re both still super duper in love, and that you look very good hunting dune-crabs with no shirt on, and it’s very silly for you to not be smoochin’, and it don’t really matter anyway _who_ killed no stinking king because the past is the past, and besides the king was a total jerkface anyway who was probably very rude to secretaries, even _reeeally_ beautiful ones that were way, _way_ smarter than—”

_“Okay, thanks, Rita!_ ” Juno interrupted Rita’s increasingly convoluted but somewhat captivating rant.

“You’re welcome, boss!” she said sweetly, and her rapid steps moved away from the door. For a moment, I considered trying to force it open, before deciding that that would not only be a waste of energy, but no way to show Juno that I wanted very much to reconcile, even if I felt Rita’s methods left something to be desired. Instead, I turned my back to the door and faced him. There were dark shadows under his eyes, but he looked as beautiful as ever.

“Soooo,” he said, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck, “I guess she sorta might have a point.”

A frisson of excitement went through me; it couldn’t possibly be that easy, “Do you believe so?” I asked.

Juno shrugged, “I dunno if all that stuff about royal intrigue and dune-crabs really applies to us, but… the past _is_ the past,” he lifted his gaze from his lap, glancing at me hopefully, “Isn’t it?”

“It is.” I agreed. A small smile flickered across Juno’s features, and it gave me enough courage to ask, “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Go for it.” he invited, kicking aside some of Rita’s mounds of plush blankets and cushions to make room.

“Thank you.” I said, as I took a seat.

We were quiet for a moment and then Juno said, “You should have told me sooner.”

“Yes,” I conceded, bowing my head, “I should have.”

“But I get it,” Juno said, and I looked back at his face, the careful almost-smile and the tense line between his brows, “It… it must’ve taken a lot of guts to tell me all that, when you could have just kept it to yourself forever.”

I shook my head, “I could not have,” I corrected, “I… would like us to know each other in our entirety, flaws and mistakes very much included. I…” I amended, “That _was_ what I wanted, anyway. Of course, I understand if… I know that you may not wish to be an item anymore, Juno, and I—”

“Shut up, Nureyev,” Juno said, shaking his head fondly, “I’m not breaking up with you.”

“You’re not.” I repeated, blinked, repeated again, “You’re not?”

“I’m not,” he said, “I… hate that you hid it from me, but like I just said. I get it. Apart from that… it’s not fair for me to hold something from your past against you, from, I mean, almost twenty years before we ever _met._ ” he met my eyes, “You really didn’t know, right? That she wasn’t single, about me?”

“I did not,” I replied, “I… I do not claim that Diamond wronged us in the same way or at the same scope, but she betrayed my love and trust much as she betrayed yours.”

“Okay,” Juno said, and his hand covered mine, warm and rough and a little cautious, “I… I wouldn’t want you breaking up with me because someone broke my heart twenty years ago, I’m not about to do the same thing to you.” He grimaced, squeezing my hand slightly, “Heartbreak is punishment enough.”

“Juno,” I breathed out, grateful and awed as always by the beauty and kindness of Juno’s spirit, shining brightly through the rough and scuffed edges of his exterior. I turned my hand and tangled my fingers with his, his touch calming the underlying fear and anxiety that had threatened to shake me apart for days, “May I kiss you?”

Juno’s smile widened, relieved and warm and _breathtaking_ , “I thought you’d never ask.” He said, and leaned towards me, chin tilting up in invitation.

~Juno~

Nureyev’s kiss was like coming home, it was as simple as that. I melted under the soft silk of his lips, the delicate urgency of his tongue against mine. I could feel the tension leeching away from my shoulders, where I had hardly even known I’d been carrying it for days. It was hard to believe it had only been _days_ , it seemed like years I had spent agonizing to Rita (and twice as much in my head) about what to do, about what I wanted, trying to make sense of this new facet to reality. It had seemed like it should be an automatic deal-breaker, and yet…

I wasn’t sure _when_ exactly our kiss had deepened, but I was pressed against the softness of Rita’s mattress before I knew it, blissfully entangled with Nureyev’s long limbs, practically hypnotized by the sweet familiarity of his kiss and his embrace. Surely it had been more than a few nights that I’d spent alone in the cabin that was mine in name only, but definitely did not feel like home.

When his lips parted from mine, “ _Nureyev..._ ” I sighed, enraptured, and my hand tangled in his hair and pulled him immediately into another kiss. This one was not all soft grateful silk, but pressed a little harder, tongues delving a little deeper, with a little more need.

When we parted again, he grinned down at me, all sharp and soft at the same time, lips red and wet, “I have one more small confession, Juno, if you’ll indulge me.” he said and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t send a shiver of worry through me.

“Shit,” I said, “What now?”

Nureyev must have recognized my expression, because he dropped a kiss soothingly at the corner of my frown, “Nothing to fret over, my love,” he reassured, “Simply that you are far more accomplished at kissing than Diamond ever was.”

My brow furrowed, annoyed and surprised and disbelieving all at once. Had he _really_ just said what I thought he’d…? And then, suddenly the humor of it surprised a big belly laugh out of me and Nureyev smiled again, starry-eyed, “ _Way_ too wet, right?” I said, “The right amount of tongue but like… _way_ slimy.”

Nureyev wrinkled his nose primly but couldn’t seem to shake the conspiratorial grin from his mouth, “Just so. That’s all, but it needed to be said.”

“Sure,” I said, “Now, how about you remind me just how much better than her _you_ are at kissing?”

“Not only at kissing, I should hope.” he said, his smile taking on that sly, confident edge that always reduced me to mush and made me hard simultaneously. This time was no exception, and I leaned up to capture his lips again, my hands making short work of the waist tie of his shirt, unwrapping it so I could finally feel his skin under my palms again. He hummed appreciatively onto my tongue and kissed me hard enough that my head got light and fuzzy.

It was only after his pants had been tossed aside and he was pushing up my skirt and peeling away my boxers that I remembered how confidently he’d told Rita we wouldn’t be needing to clean her bedding. I had never been more thrilled to see him proven wrong. It must have shown on my face because he canted his head to one side curiously as he straddled me, “What is that darling little smirk about?”

“I just love you,” I said, because it was true and it was more important than anything else I could have said, “And I missed you.”

Nureyev’s expression softened beautifully, the flush on his cheeks deepening, “I love you, too, Juno,” he said softly, tenderly pressing a kiss to my forehead, grinding soft and slick against me and kissing my lips, “And I missed you more than I can say.”

We moved against each other, hot and wet and exquisite and my eye prickled with tears of gratitude as he carefully guided me inside of him. My arms wrapped around his back and I held him close as we moved as one, “I love you,” I said again, as he sighed his pleasure beautifully against my cheek, “Nureyev, _oh_ , I love you.”

“My Juno,” he cooed, one slender hand cradling my jaw, his thumb swiping away a tear, “I love you so, my dear, lovely Juno.”

“I’m sorry,” I said suddenly, the words bubbling out of me unbidden and tearful, raw with the worry and the relief and the precious vulnerability of being so close to him, pleasure unraveling in us both. I was so much more deeply _naked_ like this than I’d ever been with anyone, so much safer in that nakedness than I ever could have even imagined was possible back in the days when I’d thought that Diamond was the person I’d spend my life with, “Nureyev, I was _so mean_ to you, I—”

“Hush, love,” he soothed, stroking my hair back from my face and slowing the rotations of his hips, “It’s forgiven, you were merely protecting yourself.”

“I never want to hurt you.” I insisted, voice thick and words insistent.

“Nor do I, love,” he said softly, kissing the teartrack on my cheek, “But I suspect it comes with the territory of loving so deeply.” he pressed his forehead to mine, “Nonetheless, I… I deeply regret hurting you as well.”

I leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips, “I forgive you and I’m sorry, and, and I love you, and I’m, I’m sorry for staying away.”

He hushed me again soothingly, “It’s alright, beautiful,” he shifted his hips against me and it wasn’t even a thrust, but the feeling was indescribable. Maybe I’d just never understood the term making love, but he made it make perfect sense, and tender and tearful and slow like this, it was like something altogether different from _sex_ , “I’ve got you, Juno, are you alright?” he caressed my cheek, “We can stop, you know I’d be absolutely content just to hold you.”

“I know,” I said, with a watery, love-struck smile, “I’m alright, I-I don’t want to stop, it feels so good to be so… close.” It was too small and common a word, but he seemed to understand.

“It does,” he agreed, moving against me again with slow, excruciatingly sweet purpose, “ _Oh,_ Juno, it _does…”_

Conversation died away after that, dissolving into hot sighs and hissed swears amid the wet sound of our lovemaking. As we approached the edge together, our pace faltered and sped and I found my voice again to beg for more just the way I knew he liked, just the way he brought out in me, desperate and trembling and with all my armor cast aside. He didn’t make me wait for it like he sometimes did, stroking his dick and fluttering tight around me, coaxing me with him to tumble over the precipice of climax.

I lost a few minutes in the ecstasy of it, still panting as I returned to myself, our sticky bodies wrapped around each other in an amorous embrace, “Juno?” Nureyev said, and I looked up to meet his eyes, shining and earnest, “I truly am sorry, so very sorry. I should have told you the moment I realized, but I…” he sniffled and impatiently wiped his eyes, “Things were so… precarious, so uncertain between us then and I… it was selfish, but I was so sure I would lose you…”

“Hey, hey,” I cupped his jaw in my hands and could feel it trembling with restrained tears, “I understand. If you’d told me when we were still… like you said, precarious. I probably woulda just taken it as an excuse to run away. So, like, good call,” I could see the glint of fear in his eyes and of course, I had an amazing ability to say the wrong thing, “But, look, I’m not running away. You’re not losing me, Nureyev, I’m not going anywhere, got it?”

He nodded, “I’ve got it.” he said reverently and I angled his face to meet my kiss, lazy and soft and full of the promises I didn’t have the words to make.

A series of cheerful knocks on the door startled us apart, “Hooooow’s it goin’ in there, Mistah Steel? Mistah Nureyev?”

“G-good, Rita,” I called back, slightly hoarse, “We’ve been… talking everything out.” Nureyev’s eyebrow quirked up playfully at that and I felt my face grow hot.

“Uh - _huh,_ ” came Rita’s smug response, “Sounds like you might be sayin’ I was _right_ , boss. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, “You were _right_.”

“A-course, I was!” she agreed happily, and I could practically hear her eyebrows waggle suggestively as she said, “I’ll just unlock his door for you, then, Mistah Steel, and you boys feel free to keep _talking_ in there if you like, but my bed betta be fresh as a daisy’s bottom when I come back from watching this stream with Mistah Siquliak!” 

We listened to her steps retreat and then Nureyev laughed, “She may have a tenuous grasp of common idioms and the length of an acceptable sentence, but she really is brilliant.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a fond eyeroll, “She is.” I kissed him once more and then sat up, “C’mon, let’s wash this stuff so we can go back to our room without a confrontation.”

“Your bravery is a source of endless inspiration, my love,” Nureyev fawned teasingly but followed my lead, getting up and dressing. He was beginning to strip the bed when he turned to me with a happy grin, “You said _our_ room.”

“Yeah?” I said, removing a pillowcase from one of Rita’s many pillows, “And?”

“I did not want to assume that things would go back to…” he cleared his throat, “That we would resume sharing.”

“Well, I’ve lost my knack for sleeping alone.” I said, gathering up as much of the bedding as I could, Nureyev’s relieved smile warming me up from the inside out.

“And I’ve lost my knack for sleeping without _you_.” he said, sappy and unapologetic and wonderful as he picked up the remaining bedclothes and started off in the direction of the laundry. I hid my smile in the pile of soft fabric in my arms and hurried after him. I knew there was a lot of adjustments ahead of us, a lot more not-fun conversations. And hell, realistically, we weren’t done hurting each others’ feelings, or revealing unexpected chapters of the past, or saying things the wrong way.

But if there was one thing all my moaning and moping had made clear to me, it was this; I had never known anything close to the love that Nureyev and I had found and nurtured and made. And I wasn’t letting it go without fighting for it, without giving it everything I had.

It was weird — it would probably _always_ be weird — that we had both loved Diamond first. But it was each other than we loved _now,_ and each other that we loved _best_ , and the love within us now could not be dimmed by the heartbreak of the past.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me at pippalovestunabrick . tumblr !  
> I need Penumbra frens!


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